Saturday morning I was drinking my coffee wondering how much effort goes into Rworldwide. (It’s my job.) I noticed that there were 4469 packages on CRAN, and it occurred to me that tabulating the packages by publication date would give some indication of how much effort is being expended to improve packags and keep them up to date. With very little work at all I was able to read the table on the Available CRAN packages by date of publication page and produce this plot.

This Facebook infographic takes a look at the complex virtual network of affiliates behind the social media platform.

Earlier this week, Facebook’s proposed revisions to its legal agreements with users went into effect. One of the changes means that Facebook can now share your data with its affiliates. But who exactly are Facebook’s affiliates? Research now reveals that the company has at least 67 affiliate companies worldwide, with the results summarized in this infographic.

It has some great information about what Facebook’s legal agreements really mean to members and is a focused story that isn’t trying to overwhelm the reader too much information or distraction.
Via Lauren Moss

Jeff Beddow's insight:

The word "affiliates" is the new mantra of all things web. Look into it.

"After the success of our collection of data visualization presentations a few weeks ago, we decided to push even further our research of multimedia resources and take the risk of selecting some videos. And we say risk, because the abundance of data visualization videos on the Internet is simply mind-blowing."

Here are libraries for plotting data on maps, frameworks for creating charts, graphs and diagrams and tools to simplify the handling of data.

Even if you’re not into programming, you’ll find applications that can be used without writing one single line of code. Many of these tools are relatively simple to use, and others are more advanced. . .

There is something about visualizing data--in the way Hans Rosling first got us all excited about--that does make a pedagogical difference at two levels. The simplest is in consuming the visualized data, an act that alllows us to see better what the data tells us, or even se what we couldn't otherwise see. The more complex application is in creting the visualization, an act that calls on very high order thinking and, even if we are not sure just what the data may be telling us, an intuition that something important is hidden in there.

Programs like Photoshop and Illustrator prompt perfection by bringing mathematics to bear on our inexact lines, make perfect circles out of our warbly loops, and create the exact #xxxxxx for our pixelated palettes.

While technology plays a big role in the data visualization world, it can come at a loss of variation: the unique stories that only our own hands can tell.

For designers and journalists, there are a number of good reasons to design by hand...

Last week, Pratt-educated street typographer Pablo A. Medina gave a lecture at New York’s Type Directors Club. His fonts — Cuba, Vitrina, North Bergen — are as irregular as the signs from which they hail. It’s an irregularity Medina acquiesces to in his artwork, in which he paints new messages using old, found fonts. Handmade designs are more personal, more expressive, more fun.

He’s not the first to notice. Famous artists like Greg Lamarche and Margaret Killigan, as well as underground grafitti artists around the world have all realized the beauty of creating by hand. It’s not perfect — and that exactly is the point.

In general, creating graphics the old-fashioned way is great for those who have not yet mastered software, and it enables more freedom of movement and, by extension, expression.

Even if you are too afraid to let a little bit of yourself out when designing data visualizations, mock up creations by hand. Designing visualizations this way can still be faster and have fewer limitations...

Read further to learn more about how creating images by hand saves time, electricity, and unnecessary labor, while allowing more opportunities for creative exploration and expression.

Co.DesignInfographic: Visualizing Prime Numbers, For People Who Suck At MathCo.DesignJason Davies, a data visualization specialist and computer scientist, created a graphic for the rest of us to picture the unique relationships between prime numbers.

Not about photography. Unless you have the experience or wisdom to see that data graphics, in its best sense, is a form of photography...it extracts an image translated through an intermedium for a wider audience, and posterity.

Prohibited Mail - From Lottery Tickets to Pornography [Infographic]Business 2 CommunityHave you ever hesitated at the post box, thinking: “If I send this I could get arrested.” Unless you were sending illegal substances, threatening letters or...

On September 27th, the world's best examples of visually stunning information was recognized at the inaugural Information is Beautiful awards.

The event, held at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, awarded designers from all over the world in a variety of categories, including data visualisation, infographics and data journalism.

When David McCandless, author, data journalist and founder of the IIB data-visualisation studio, announced in early 2012 that IIB was looking for award applicants, he was inundated with over 1,000 entries.

"I've just been amazed by the sheer quality of the creative work submitted to the awards from around the world," McCandless told Wired.co.uk. "There are a number of criteria we look for when judging these awards. Not only do they have to have the right visual quality and be easily understood, they have to have that invisible element of story telling as well."

Read the complete article for a closer look at all the winners, selected by a panel of judges including musician and visual artist Brian Eno, senior curator of the Museum of Modern Art Paola Antonelli, BrainPickings.org editor Maria Popova and Guardian Datablog editor Simon Rogers.

OneZoom Tree of Life Explorer... An excellent way of visualizing data... Good usage of fractals.

"Big data" is a growing issue in science and industry, as modern computing has enabled large amounts of data to be captured and stored, revolutionizing many branches of science. These advances, however, also lead to challenges, such as how to explore and visualize large data sets.

The very first blue-skies idea that could have been identified with OneZoom was that of a mind map so vast that it could contain all human knowledge. The concept involved making the information easy to explore by laying it out in ever smaller bubbles using a fractal structure and a zooming interface so that the computer never runs out of space to put the information no matter how much there is.

OneZoom is committed to heightening awareness about the diversity of life on earth, its evolutionary history and the threats of extinction. This website allows you to explore the tree of life in a completely new way: it's like a map, everything is on one page, all you have to do is zoom in and out. OneZoom also provides free, open source, data visulation tools for science and education.

The mind map concept is also showing up in a project and upcoming conference and book for organizing and making available the diversity of research information in neurobiology. From the link below you can track down that information. Also you can go to newsroom.ucla.edu and search for Dr. Silva, below.

I believe that the visual representation of complex systems is going to percolate progressively into fields less friendly to or organized as a science.

"Alcino Silva, a professor of neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. "

Before the digital age, neuroscientists got their information in the library like the rest of us. But the explosion of neuroscience research has resulted in the publication of nearly 2 million papers — more data than any researcher can read and absorb . . .

Jet Propulsion LaboratoryJPL Infographics Site Wants You and Your CreativityJet Propulsion LaboratoryJPL Infographics Site Wants You and Your Creativity.

Really. Interesting -- I attended the first-ever Scientific Visualization conference in 1988 at JPL. The Cray-5 at Las Alamos used as a graphics front end to their other 4 Cray-5 supercomputers had less power than the Graphics Processing Unit on my son's gaming computer has now. Ah, nostalgia.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.